Artists connect with fans through power of the Web

By Kristina M. Jackson

Updated 7:28 am, Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Four years ago, Phoenix resident Anna Marie Iannitelli sat in the backseat of a car, belting out "Sweet Child O' Mine" with three of her friends as they re-created a scene from the movie "Step Brothers."

Then they posted the video on YouTube.

Among the more than 770,000 viewers who have watched the video since then was a music producer who saw something in a girl singing Guns N' Roses.

Iannitelli, 17, is now known to a growing number of fans as pop singer Avery. She has released a pair of singles from the CD she is recording for Universal Motown, and she'll perform Wednesday at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

"I just liked to sing, and I thought I'll post it and see what happens," Avery said about that fateful homemade video.

Pop singer Avery, who was discovered on YouTube, has released a pair of singles for Universal Motown. She is scheduled to perform Wednesday at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

Pop singer Avery, who was discovered on YouTube, has released a pair of singles for Universal Motown. She is scheduled to perform Wednesday at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

Photo: Universal Motown Records

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The Cartoon Network series "The Annoying Orange" originally annoyed viewers online in a series of YouTube videos.

The Cartoon Network series "The Annoying Orange" originally annoyed viewers online in a series of YouTube videos.

Photo: Cartoon Network

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John Green, author of "The Fault in Our Stars," has built an online community with a series of YouTube channels.

John Green, author of "The Fault in Our Stars," has built an online community with a series of YouTube channels.

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Artists connect with fans through power of the Web

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She's part of a growing trend of young artists who have used YouTube as a springboard to mainstream success. Justin Bieber might be the most famous singer to be discovered on the site, but he and Avery are not the only ones who have learned how to use it to connect to their audience.

"It's a good way to create a fan base," said Avery, who has released original music and cover songs - and racked up almost 50 million video views - on her YouTube channel.

She said young artists can get noticed by posting unique covers to gain views. For her cover of the Gym Class Heroes' "Stereo Hearts," she used a backing band of friends playing iPhone apps.

"It can be changing the melody, slowing it down, just making your own style that matches what you want to do," she said.

YouTube encourages people to use the site creatively through a partner program. Partner users get a majority of the revenue from the ads appearing on their channels, which allows some of them to make their living through YouTube.

"It's a way to build their brand in a way that's super interactive," said Austin Lau, a creator programs specialist at YouTube.

Lau said acts such as Karmin, a dance-pop duo that built a following on YouTube before landing a record deal and a musical guest spot on "Saturday Night Live," come back to the site to get feedback from their fans.

"They use YouTube as a way to talk to their audience," he said.

Dane Boedigheimer's "Annoying Orange" web series is another prime example of a successful jump from YouTube to the mainstream. In 2009, Boedigheimer posted a video of the title character - an orange on which he had superimposed his mouth and eyes - hectoring a similarly animated apple. The mix of low-budget live action and computer animation, bad puns and violence against vegetables was indeed annoying - and very popular. The Annoying Orange channel has amassed more than 1.3 billion views, and the Cartoon Network launched a half-hour show featuring the characters in June.

"We've all been annoyed by someone like Orange," Boedigheimer said in an email. "It's funny to watch someone else have to go through that."

He said YouTube users can cultivate their audience by posting frequently, but also by involving and remembering their audience as more people turn to YouTube for entertainment.

When Boedigheimer and his team pitched their "Annoying Orange" pilot, they wanted to find a network that would let them continue and maintain control over the web show.

"That audience was built online, so it would be counterintuitive to destroy that online fan base," he said.

Author John Green also has seen his audience grow, thanks to a video blog that he runs with his brother Hank.

Green has written four novels for young adults, three of which are New York Times best-sellers, along with another he co-wrote with friend David Levithan. His latest, "The Fault in Our Stars," is still No. 3 on the Times' children's chapter book list and No. 83 overall on Amazon.com 28 weeks after its release.

He credits the followers of the VlogBrothers YouTube channel with pushing his novels to this level of success.

"There are people who read my books who have no idea I make videos," Green said. "But if it weren't for people who create that kind of activation energy, no one would know my books."

Fans of the channel and others created by the Greens (such as Crash Course: Biology, Sci Show and Hank Games), known as "nerdfighters," have created a community that extends beyond the brothers' work. They banded together and started the Project for Awesome, for instance, in which nerdfighters try to fill the YouTube home page with videos about volunteering and charity work every year on Dec. 17.

"That's what interactivity can do," Green said.

He said this is challenging for an author, who is supposed to disappear when readers pick up his books, but it gives him the opportunity to talk about subjects that matter to him, such as the educational content on Crash Course.